Minorities Often a Majority of the Population Under 20
Foreshadowing the nation’s changing makeup, one in four American counties have passed or are approaching the tipping point where black, Hispanic and Asian children constitute a majority of the under-20 population, according to analyses of census figures released Thursday. Racial and ethnic minorities now account for 43 percent of Americans under 20. Among people of all ages, minorities make up at least 40 percent of the population in more than one in six of the nation’s 3,141 counties.

8/1/2008

10% of U.S. Counties Now 'Majority-Minority'
Immigration and higher fertility among minorities have put the United States on a path to become "majority-minority," when less than 50 percent of the population will be non-Hispanic white. Racial and ethnic minorities,1 which currently account for one-third of the U.S. population, are projected to reach 50 percent by 2050. But new 2007 estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau show that about 10 percent (302) of the country's 3,141 counties have already passed that mark. Another 218 counties have reached the "tipping point" toward becoming majority-minority in the next few years: Between 40 percent and 50 percent of the population in those counties are minorities.

7/29/2008

U.S. blacks face harsher climate change impact
American blacks are likely to suffer disproportionately from climate change and they are willing to pay to combat it, a commission aimed at raising awareness about global warming said on Tuesday."There is a fierce urgency regarding climate change effects on the African-American community," said Ralph Everett, the co-chair of the Commission to Engage African-Americans on Climate Change said. Blacks are more than twice as likely as whites to live in cities where the so-called heat island effect is expected to make temperature increases more severe, the newly formed group said at a briefing. More blacks also will be "fuel poor" as energy demand rises due to higher air-conditioning loads, population growth and urbanization, commission said.

7/24/2008

Global warming more harmful to low-income minorities
Blacks are more likely to be hurt by global warming than other Americans, according to a report issued Thursday. The report was authored by the Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative, a climate justice advocacy group, and Redefining Progress, a nonprofit policy institute. It detailed various aspects of climate change, such as air pollution and rising temperatures, which it said disproportionately affect blacks, minorities and low-income communities in terms of poor health and economic loss. Heat-related deaths among blacks occur at a 150 to 200 percent greater rate than for non-Hispanic whites, the report said. It also reported that asthma, which has a strong correlation to air pollution, affects blacks at a 36 percent higher rate of incidence than whites. To view the full article please click HERE.

3/12/2008

EPA sets tougher air-quality standards
The EPA's new smog limit is 75 parts per billion of ozone, down from the current level of 80. Because of rounding, the old standard was effectively 84 parts per billion. The EPA failed to head the advice of its independent science advisory panel who unanimously had said the standard should be no higher than 70 parts per billion. In a March 2007 letter to the EPA, panelists said there is "overwhelming scientific evidence" for a reduction of that magnitude.

More
than 100 Groups Call on U.S. Senate to Address Environmental
Justice
On Wednesday, professor Robert D. Bullard (Director
of the Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark
Atlanta University) presented the Senate Subcommittee
on Superfund and Environmental Health “Oversight
of the EPA’s Environmental Justice Programs"
hearing, chaired by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton,
with a copy of a letter signed by more than one hundred
environmental justice networks, civil rights and human
rights organizations, faith based groups, and health
allies, representing millions of Americans from New
York to Alaska, endorsing the 2007 United Church of
Christ Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty: 1987-2007 report
findings and recommendations.

7/13/2007

NBEJN
Leaders Seek NAACP Help in "Burying" Toxic
Racism. Representatives from the National Black
Environmental Justice Network traveled to Detroit as
part of a delegation calling on NAACP leaders attending
the 2007 convention to take on environmental racism
as a national campaign. The group conducted a “toxics
tour” that took delegates past chemical plants,
steel mills, automotive factories, abandoned industrial
sites, and waste incinerators.

No
Black Plan for the Cities, Despite the Lessons of Katrina. The Katrina catastrophe indisputably revealed the corporate
plan for America's cities. No sooner had the waters
receded than corporate planners devised elaborate schemes
for a "new" New Orleans - a "better"
city in which Blacks would never again be allowed to
become majorities. African American "leadership"
should have understood that, with Katrina, corporate
America had shown its hand: dramatic reduction of Black
populations is at the core of the corporate urban "renaissance"
model. Nevertheless, African Americans have failed to
tackle the job of comprehensive urban planning that
serves existing populations, and conserves Black political
power for the future. By blackagendareport.com

5/29/2007

25th
Anniversary of the Warren County PCB Landfill Protests. It has now been twenty-five years since the 1982 protests
against a controversial toxic waste dump in Warren County,
North Carolina gave birth to the national environmental
justice movement. The protests also put environmental
racism on the map.

Ten
Best Cities for African Americans BLACK ENTERPRISE
Magazine revealed its most recent list of top cities
for African Americans as featured in its May 2007 issue.
The top picks were culled from more than 2,000 interactive
surveys completed on Black Enterprise and by editorial
staff evaluation. By Black Enterprise Magazine.

4/10/2007

Toxic
Waste and Race: Report Confirms No Progress Made
in 20 Years: Response to Katrina Catastrophe Is Not
an Anomaly, Researchers Say

2006

10/27/2006

National Public Radio's Living on Earth Air Date: Week
of October 27, 2006, Post Katrina Injustice
Host Steve Curwood talks with social scientists Beverly
Wright and Robert Bullard about the issues of environmental
justice and discrimination that the poor and black people
in New Orleans are facing in the rebuilding efforts
following Hurricane Katrina
To listen to the show click HERE

10/23/2006

Rand Gulf States Policy Institute, 'From Flood Control
to Integrated Water Resource Management. Lessons for
the Gulf Coast from Flooding in Other Places in the
Last Sixty Years'. To view article click HERE